On Reticence Of Non-English Majors In English Classroom

With the arrival of globalization, the significance of English learning has been growing rapidly in the past several decades. Chinese primary and secondary schools, even universities have classified English as a main course, which attract more and more researchers’ attention to foreign language learning. Their findings indicated that Chinese students are quite reticent in English class and unwilling to take part in classroom activities. English classroom reticence has long been a challenge for both teachers and students. Foreign researchers conducted their studies on classroom reticence much earlier than domestic researchers and they chose Asian students who studied abroad as their research subjects. In the light of the previous research and internship experience, the author aimed to explore the non-English major students’ reticence level in English class and possible factors of classroom silence in Yili Normal University.For the reliability of the results, both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in the present study. The author invited 210 non-English major students to complete the questionnaire. This school divided these students into three level classes based on their scores of College Entrance Examination.210 questionnaires were distributed and 200 valid questionnaires were collected. Descriptive analysis of SPSS 19.0 was used to analyze the data from the questionnaire. As for qualitative research, the author observed six focal classes in three levels with field notes and interviewed five teachers and 20 students (level A:6; level B:7; level C:7).In terms of the data analysis, the author discovered the following findings:Firstly, English classroom reticence is such a common and serious problem in Yili Normal University that non-English majors’ classroom reticence level is quite high. Most students are unwilling to give responses to their teachers especially when they find that the questions are challenging. Teachers talking more and students taking notes silently are the most common scene in English class.Secondly, factors of classroom reticence are various and complicated. From the perspective of students, learning anxiety, motivation, personality, low language proficiency and lack of confidence all are factors that might result in their unwillingness to communicate. Teachers’ teaching mode, questioning types and methods, feedback and intolerance of reticence also are possible factors of English classroom reticence. Furthermore, Chinese traditional culture and classroom atmosphere might be other related reasons. That is to say, our Chinese traditional culture emphasizes face-saving, modesty and showing respect to teachers, which might also contribute to English classroom reticence.Therefore, designing more tasks in English class, creating a supportive classroom atmosphere and enhancing integrative motivation and confidence are several pedagogical implications proposed in chapter five. Even though English classroom reticence has been a long-standing phenomenon, the author hopes that teachers and students could have a better understanding of it through this research. In the Future, researchers could conduct empirical studies on strategies of breaking classroom reticence.